Vashti Middens
Personality Vashti is a fun-loving child. She likes to find the playful aspect in things. She sees her father's potions equipment largely as toys. She hasn't lost this view, despite--or perhaps even because of--lessons on potion making. She sees necromancy mainly as a way of making unusual toys and/or pets (she hasn't made up her mind on what the reanimated corpses count as). And because of her (limited) experience with necromancy, she isn't squicked by dead things. Sure, sometimes the stench or the maggots can be gross, but those can be dealt with; and then you have prime toy/pet-making material! She won't back down from a fight. She doesn't try to pick fights, but she's not always the most careful about how she phrases things. She's usually a fairly straightforward person, and speaks her mind. She can be stubborn, though she is capable of taking direction. She's also more than capable of giving direction. In activities that call for some sort of organization, she will step up and provide it. She doesn't particularly enjoy or dislike being in charge; she just likes to keep activities running smoothly, and sometimes she has to take charge to get that accomplished. She values fairness. She tries to be fair to others, and behaves as if she will be treated fairly in return. She doesn't necessarily expect fair treatment, however. She tries to remain optimistic about people (unless they've already proven their untrustworthiness), but she realizes that people aren't always, well, fair. Moreover, there are some rules that she understands being punished for breaking--as they are rules--but she doesn't accept that punishment as just. Some rules are silly in her mind. She will stand up for others if she believes they're being treated unjustly and need help. She doesn't consciously recognize this fact about herself, largely because of the caveat 'and need help'. If she thinks they're capable of handling the situation themselves, she doesn't feel any particular obligation to insert herself into their problem. She's a daddy's girl. She looks up to her dad a lot and enjoys doing stuff with him, whether it be reading a children's book or performing experiments on dead animals. The fact that Daddy happens to be a vampire has left her with very inclusive views on beinghood, and something of a lack of a healthy sense of fear towards some of the more dangerous sorts. She is pretty fearless in general. She also has a very strong liking for blood lollipops, but she's sure that's unrelated to anything. Her being part vampire has had a fairly subtle effect on her, and then mainly physically. She doesn't question these traits, as she's had them as long as she can remember. They simply don't that seem strange to her. She's developed a preference for dark places. This is mostly a result of her trying to avoid more than dim sunlight without having to stay inside all day. Occasionally she'll space out if someplace quiet with other people. She doesn't always seem spaced out; in fact, most of the time she seems to be focusing on something very intently. This is because she finds other heartbeats somewhat hypnotic if they aren't getting drowned out by anything else. She's not sure how long these fits last because when she's spaced out she loses all sense of time, which she finds frustrating. This is perhaps understandable, as the fits can last anywhere from a few minutes to upwards of an hour. She is loyal, and good at keeping secrets. Once again, this is in large part due to her father. She loves him, and keeping his secrets keeps him safe. She applies the same logic towards anyone she deems a friend. However, she has also learned that one must use some discretion in who one considers a friend. She doesn't consider everyone she's friendly with to automatically be a 'friend'. She currently has some conflicted feelings towards her half-brother. He's family, so he should automatically get loyalty, right? ...Only, she doesn't trust him. While one would have to earn her trust to get bumped up to 'real friend', Vashti is quite friendly. She enjoys the company of others and is sociable. She enjoys learning new things. She doesn't necessarily enjoy continuing to study after learning the basic details of something, though. The thing itself has to be fun for her to want to keep pursuing knowledge of it. Background Vashti's parents never married, and it was no secret her father Dren had more than one girlfriend. He didn't live with the Middens, but he visited often. They never visited him because he didn't stay in any one place very long. Vashti never really thought it was a terribly unusual arrangement. Or that it was strange her father had to drink a potion to go out in the sun. She did think it was a bit odd all the neat equipment he kept in their basement had to be kept a secret from the neighbors. When a young child, Vashti sometimes played with her father's potion making setup in the basement. She wasn't supposed to, of course; she did it anyway. A mishap one day left her with green hair. Her mother was upset, but Dren assured her the effect would most likely wear off quickly, and definitely grow out at the very least. When neither happened he was very apologetic. Vashti liked her new hair color though, and eventually convinced her mother Sarah to stop dyeing over it. She didn't really care if she was now seen as the neighborhood's "weird child". Her new hair was awesome. She and her parents came to an agreement though: Dren would teach her a little something of how potion making really worked, as long as she only used the equipment when he was watching. If she didn't abide by the agreement, the lessons would stop. It wasn't until she was about eight that her parents finally explained what Dren was--namely, a wizard. Only not really because the wizarding world didn't count vampires as wizards anymore. And then Dren launched into an in-depth discussion of politics that only confused Vashti. Sarah had to interrupt and give the short version: Dren was a vampire who could do magic. He was an potions maker by trade. And he moved around a lot because... well, partly because vampires tended not to be very popular as neighbors, even the nicer ones. This explanation answered a lot of little questions she'd never realized she had before about her father. She never thought to doubt her parents--everything tied together too well. She thought having a magical vampire for a dad was actually really cool. She knew she couldn't tell any of her friends though. She and her mother lived in a very muggle neighborhood. Even if it hadn't been a family secret, she doubted any of her friends would have believed her. It never occurred to her that Dren being a vampire was particularly important, aside from the cool factor. She certainly didn't question her own status as a result. She'd never heard of part vampires before, and had never put much thought into how genetics worked. But if she had reflected sufficiently, she might have realized that this could also explain some of her own traits, such as why sunlight was so hard on her eyes (leading to her wearing shades outside most days) and why she enjoyed the taste of blood so much. It might have explained her sensitive hearing and excellent night vision. And it probably would have explained why, if it was particularly quiet, she could hear the heartbeats of other people in the room. She knew her eyestrain in the sun was unusual, but she never thought to look for any reason behind it. She assumed it was just something that happened with some people. They had to make shades for some reason. She'd probably developed her taste for blood from sucking on all the blood lollipop things her dad brought her. And her mother tended to serve meat pretty rare, even when Dren wasn't visiting. That no doubt played a part. Having good hearing or night vision wasn't very unusual. She was just lucky that way. As for hearing others' heartbeats? She never thought to mention it to anyone. She assumed everybody could. It turned out vampirism wasn't the main reason Dren moved around so much. It was mostly because he dabbled in necromancy. Vashti caught him one night (after she'd been woken up by a bad dream), reanimating a squirrel skeleton in the basement. She wasn't upset, as she might have been had she been raised to recognize and fear the dark arts; she just wanted to play with the cool bony thing. Dren was amused and decided to let her in on some of his experiments, if she promised to keep them a secret. He explained that he felt what he was doing was harmless, but that it was technically illegal and he could get in trouble if he was caught. So she began to learn a little something of the dark arts as well. Her life was interrupted one evening by the sudden arrival of a half brother she knew nothing about. Dren had brought another one of his kids, Valor, to live with the Middens after the boy's mother died. His mother had been a pureblood with extensive family ties, but she had been estranged from them because of her relationship with Dren. Moreover, Valor was a squib. Her family didn't want him. Valor and his mum disliked Dren. His mother had disliked Dren because she blamed him for her family's estrangement. She had been in love with him at the time and chose him over them willingly; but she had fallen out of love after a while, and later began to suspect he had used glamour on her to make her think she was in love with him in the first place. She had also blamed him for Valor's squibness. Her bloodline was pure. The failure to produce a magical child was clearly the fault of Dren's vampiric nature. Valor disliked Dren mainly because his mother had. To be fair, Dren hadn't been around much either. Dren disliked conflict, and conflict is something that's hard to avoid with an ex-girlfriend who hates you. His relationship with Valor suffered for it. Vashti wanted to like her half brother. She finally had someone her own age who she could talk to about magic and Dren. But Valor's attitude towards Dren worried her. She was afraid he might find out about their father's experiments and report him to... somebody? She wasn't sure who one would report such a thing to. She also found it hard to like someone who, she felt, was being so unfair to his own father. Valor finally started to settle in and show a pleasanter side (though he still had a chip on his shoulder towards Dren) after he'd been with the Middens for about a year. He and his half sister struck up a tentative friendship, and discovered they actually had a lot in common. Then he threw a rather unattractive fit when Vashti got her letter. He really didn't think it was fair that the one with the muggle mother got to go to Hogwarts while he couldn't. By the time Vashti left for school, they were on bad terms again. It cast a shadow for her over an otherwise exciting development. Relationships Dren Ku Father. Vampire, was a halfblood when alive. A potionsmaker with no fixed address. Sarah Middens Mother. Muggle. Valor Xung Half-brother. Squib. Mother was a pureblood. character Fill in the blanks Trivia *Her hair grows green, due to a potions mishap as a child See Also Her mun is Mordrid. External Links character journal